In 2014, Peter Perdue (Yale University) delivered the Melville-Nelles-Hoffmann Lecture in Environmental History at York University. His lecture focused on the history of the Chinese tea trade.  Professor Perdue is a leading scholar of modern Chinese and Japanese social, economic, and environmental history. He is the winner of the 2007 Joseph Levenson Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies for his book,China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia.

His lecture, titled “Mountains, Caravans, Rivers, and Salons: China’s Multiple Tea Trades,” explored one of China’s best-known export commodities. Prior to the late nineteenth century, China was the world’s predominant tea exporter and consumer. “But just as there are many kinds of tea,” Perdue explains, “there are many kinds of tea trades, within and beyond China.” His lecture provided an overview of the many tea trades of China with special attention to the ecological contexts within which tea is grown. Tea demands a particular type of ecology and it is best grown in hill regions. This history of the Chinese tea trade followed this global commodity from highlands to lowlands to markets around the world.

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews